Grassroots News & Progressive Views

This 2013 article is a reminder of what is at stake in the efforts to repeal the ACA (Obamacare). The current GOP plan (AHCA) would let employers deny coverage for maternity and other care. Pregnancy would become a preexisting condition–again.

I didn’t know pregnancy was a preexisting condition until I was 8.5 months pregnant.

“You are uninsurable,” says the sales representative from Blue Cross of California. “Pregnancy is considered a preexisting condition.”

“You mean the preexisting condition that allows humanity to survive?” I snapped. I was furious.

To the sales rep’s credit, he thought it was ridiculous too. [Read more…]

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Editor’s Note: Chicano Park was designated as a National Historic Landmark on January 11, 2017. This 2013 article from the San Diego Free Press archives chronicles Chicano Park’s placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

On Friday, March 15, the Ides of March, there was a press conference at Chicano Park in my beloved Barrio Logan. The press conference was put together to announce Chicano Park being added to the National Register of Historic Places. In other words, Chicano Park was officially recognized as being a national treasure of the United States. Those of us who live in Logan and the various barrios throughout San Diego, California and beyond already recognize this fact. But, through the fine work of Chicano Park co-founder, Josie Talamantez, the nation now officially recognizes this.

In front of Chicano Park co-founders, activists, artists, professors and numerous members of the media Mayor Bob Filner gave praise to Chicano Park and those that struggled for a peoples park. He was followed by District 8 City Councilman David Alvarez, State Senator elect Ben Hueso, Chicano Park Steering Committee Chairperson Tommie Camarillo and Josie Talamantez who broke down the process and criteria for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. It was a proud day for all involved in the creation and maintenance of Chicano Park. [Read more…]

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As we were sitting in Victor Ochoa’s studio garage in Golden Hill the other day, I realized that even though we’d been friends since the late 1970’s, I didn’t know a whole lot about his earlier life before those heady days of the Seventies decade. I was wondering whether he remembered that I had helped arrange for him to be hired to paint murals at the Che Cafe up at UCSD – way back in in 1980 and 81. He did but he had a few different details.

“This is my favorite garage,” Victor said, as we settled in for our talk. Surrounding us on three sides inside the garage were painting materials and large plastic bins holding more painting stuff stacked up on shelves, brushes, cans of paint piled on each other, cans of spray paint in a shallow closest. There was a gas-powered airbrush machine that looked like a cross between a lawn mower and a Mars Rover.

In one corner, he had set up a type of shrine to his past, his family, his culture, with various memorabilia of his life. On another wall were posters of Pancho Villa and of more recent Chicano heroes, like Corky Gonzalez, and local activist Marco Anguiano. And along part of one of the walls were the books, the notebooks, the 3-ring binders, paper records, the manuscripts, the slides. [Read more…]

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Surrounded by the famous murals that make Chicano Park a powerful and spiritual refuge on a regular day, it is impossible not to be affected by the deep traditions that make up the Chicano culture while visiting during the 43rd annual Chicano Park Day.

Not even the blistering sun could keep hundreds from coming to celebrate . This year marks the first that the park and its murals have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since being established by Chicano activists on April 22, 1970.

The event showcased classic cars, vendors, food, music and Aztec dancers, and was attended by couples and families alike — many of whom have been taking part in this celebration for years. [Read more…]

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Resistance, Vision and Community

Chicano Park exists in Barrio Logan because of the construction of the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and the loss of property and displacement of lives that it caused. The community responded in a powerful, unique way. Residents couldn’t stop the construction, but they did lay claim to the land beneath the immense concrete pillars that enabled travelers above to make their way across the Coronado Bridge, oblivious to the transformation occurring below them. The land that was being readied for a California Highway Patrol substation was re-claimed as a long promised park. The reclamation began as a twelve day occupation that involved hundreds of people.

City Heights was likewise changed forever when eight city blocks along 40th Street- people’s homes and businesses–were scoured from the face of the earth in the early 1990’s to make way for the last connecting link of I-15, which extends from Canada to Mexico. City Heights would become a scorched earth community divided by an enormous ditch in keeping with Caltrans signature construction style. [Read more…]

A new report offers some insights into the changing ways younger Americans consume news, and the news isn’t particularly good for the nation’s news media.

The study shows that younger people view the news with distrust and do their own research to verify or clarify facts. Overall, they tend to trust video (especially user-generated video) more than the written word, but they see bias as inevitable in whatever news they encounter. They find news online—or else it finds them first, as it populates their social media feeds.

The Knight Foundation, a group founded by John S. and James L. Knight of the old Knight Ridder newspaper chain, released a report with a complicated message on how teens and young adults get their news and how much they believe of what they see or read. “How Youth Navigate the News Landscape” shows that most young people are bombarded with news on all of their devices from all kinds of social media—and that they view it with huge measures of salt. [Read more…]

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Fact-checking is a feeble response in a world where what we think we see and know is more important than the actual truth.

Donald Trump’s continued attacks on the American news media as “the enemy of the American people” have generated quite a stir in mainstream media circles as one might expect. And surely there is good reason to be disturbed by this administration’s punitive stance towards the press.

But what virtually none of the analysis of Trump’s attacks on “fake news” or Steve Bannon’s assaults on what he calls “the corporatist global media,” which both he and the president label “the opposition,” note is the irony that while the new regime is attacking the power of the corporate media, they are also busy installing corporatists in nearly every position of power and pushing an agenda that is every right-wing billionaire’s wet dream. [Read more…]

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Today we’ll look at some recent developments as the divisions of power within the White House are coming into focus.

So-called President Donald Trump is there for the fame and fortune. Vice President Pence and his buddy Reince Priebus are there to oversee the dismantling of the new deal social contract. And ‘Economic Nationalist’ Steve Bannon is overseeing the reshuffling of the world order while tweaking domestic social policies.

The rise of a nationwide resistance continues. While Senate Democrats won’t actually achieve the historically rare feat of denying cabinet confirmations, the drip, drip, drip of damning information combined with an increasingly aware and active electorate will continue to challenge the administration’s priorities. [Read more…]

The Mexican Repatriation and hard times

Editor Note: “Build a wall” and “Send them all back” have become the mantra of the Trump campaign and Republican party. This is not the first time in our history that racism and xenophobia have threatened our democracy and the lives of our citizenry.

Between 1929 and 1944, over two million people of Mexican descent were repatriated to Mexico. Sixty percent of these individuals, 1.1 million, were American citizens. This encore presentation of Maria Garcia’s article originally published in 2015 provides insight into how this policy affected the lives of people living in San Diego at the time.

As William Faulkner observed “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” [Read more…]

Donald Trump has bragged that someone once called him “the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters.” There is no evidence that such a thing was ever said, though that is hardly the point.

Unfortunately for us, the new president possesses neither the courage nor the self-control of Hemingway, winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature for writing unforgettably about bravery under fire. As the problems created by Trump-tweets pile up, the source of Trump’s addiction to Twitter has become all too clear. Eugene Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist, described it in words worthy of John Steinbeck: “Trump’s Twitter tantrums are a message of weakness.”[Read more…]

Editor Note: Congressman John Lewis told Chuck Todd in a recent interview that he did not see Trump as a legitimate president and that he would not attend the inauguration. Congressman Lewis brings the voice of moral authority and courage to his decision. The following is an article from the SDFP archives published on March 2, 2014.

On Saturday March 1, Congressman John Lewis received the National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC) Peacemaker award for his outstanding work as a civil rights champion and inspiring congressional leader. The reception, dinner and award ceremony were held at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines. I did not attend, but there is no doubt in my mind that the guests were moved by his powerful oratory as he embraced another opportunity at that event to promote non-violent action as the only democratic remedy and response to injustice in the world.

Earlier in the day, Congressman John Lewis entered the Oak Park Public Library and became Storyteller John Lewis. In the intimacy of this small library, Lewis was clearly in his element. The Oak Park Library has no meeting room. Over eighty people sat and stood in the heart of this library surrounded by computers and book stacks. We sang This Little Light of Mine, lead by Lisa Sanders followed by a brief, heartfelt introduction from 4th district Councilwoman Myrtle Cole, the first African American woman on the city council.

In this place, Congressman Lewis unhurriedly and deftly wove the personal details of his own life, about how he grew up in rural Alabama on a farm in the segregationist south. We were immediately drawn into the storyteller’s enchanted circle.[Read more…]